Shadows of the Grave
by Deranged Black Kitten
Summary: The plague rages on and with even more deaths occurring by the day, JD picks now of all times to go missing. Takes place after 'My So-Called Afterlife.'
1. Chapter 1

_Hey everyone! I'm back with the third story in the Dead Like Me/Scrubsverse. This story won't be nearly as long as My So-Called Afterlife (a fic you should read if you haven't already, otherwise this one won't make any sense). Some parts of this will seem like pointless whumpage and, well, some of it is, but there **is** a significant point to this story in the overall plot. I've also decided to write this in third person POV. Enjoy!_

Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.

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**Chapter 1**

It's time.

That's what the brief phone call they just got was about, and it wasn't just any old time. It wasn't _'it's time for work'_ or _'it's time for lunch'_ or any of the other type of times that come up throughout your average day. It was the big one, the big '_Honey, it's time_.' As in, it was time for Carla to have her baby.

Turk was freaking out while trying to stay calm at the same time and JD couldn't help but grin like a maniac as he watched his friend race around the apartment collecting up all of Carla's bags. As for Carla, her water broke while she was working (she stubbornly refused to take time off), so she was already safely at the hospital.

That was too bad too because JD and Turk had planned this whole big event with a band and everything. JD doubted that something like that would be allowed into the hospital.

So while JD rode shotgun with Turk driving, he called up Perry on his cell phone because although Perry may not be allowed to see the people he knew when he was alive on a regular basis, JD felt that the birth of Carla's child was something he should be able to witness.

"What do you want? I'm working here," Perry growled in greeting.

"Does that mean you're already at the hospital?" JD asked.

"No, it's some moron who felt dieing at his home would be more suitable than going to the hospital," Perry said.

Faintly in the background, JD could hear someone say in offense, "Hey!"

"Souls should be neither seen nor heard," Perry said to his reap before asking JD again, "So what do you want?"

"Carla's gone into labor and I don't see the harm in you being there for it," JD said. "Just come to the hospital when you're done. You'll want to be there for this, believe me."

"Fine," Perry said before hanging up the phone.

Hanging up his own cell phone and slipping it into his pocket, JD said, "He said he might stop by."

Turk nodded, then said, "No offense man, but your cousin is... weird."

"He's not _that_ weird," JD said.

"He always seems to be grouchy and he's really antisocial," Turk said. "Sometimes it's like he purposely goes out of his way to avoid us."

"We're just not his crowd," JD said with a shrug.

"I guess," Turk said, not sounding too sure.

JD let the subject drop because there was really nothing he could truthfully tell his friend to explain his 'cousin's' behavior. According to the rest of the world, Perry Cox died of the plague a few months back and telling people anything otherwise would just stir up unwanted trouble.

They arrived at the hospital soon after and brought Carla her bags. She had a room to herself on the second floor, the floor reserved for people without the plague. Elliot was already in the room when they got there, having also been working at the time, and they were all in or around the room for moral support, coming and going as the hours passed by.

Perry arrived around three in the afternoon and went into Carla's room only once to give his congratulations. After that, he kept his distance outside the room. When Carla was pretty far along, everyone aside from Turk and the doctor and nurses left the room.

Joining Perry in the hall outside Carla's room, JD asked, "So how has your day been going."

"It's been okay," he said with a simple shrug.

"Have you looked into any hospital positions?" JD asked, referring to the fact that Perry finally got his medical degree and papers in the mail under his alias, Chris Warrender.

"Not yet," Perry sighed. "I haven't found a position that won't require me to redo my time as an intern." He glanced over at JD. "Not that I don't appreciate being invited to this _joyous occasion,_ but I have witnessed childbirth before, so is there a reason you wanted me here aside from the fact that it's Carla giving birth?"

"I don't want to ruin the surprise," JD said with a goofy grin. "But you've never seen childbirth from a reaper's perspective."

'_The birth of a new soul,_' Perry thought, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. With death as amazing as it is, just what would the creation of life be like?

It was close to dusk when it happened. A wave of power and energy surged past the walls of Carla's room. It washed over the two reapers and the only way Perry could think to describe the feeling was to say that he felt like his veins had been flooded with liquid happiness. The feeling dissipated like a quick drug fix leaving Perry feeling buzzed.

Looking over at JD who had a pleasant smile on his face, all Perry could think to ask was, "How is it that you're not constantly hanging around the maternity ward?"

Laughing a little, JD said, "I'm responsible enough to not become an addict. Besides, it doesn't feel as nice if the person giving birth is a stranger to you."

Turk soon burst out of the room with the news on the birth of his daughter, Isabella, and he and JD shared a quick happy dance before the two pranced back into the room along with Elliot and Perry following behind, rolling his eyes. They surrounded Carla's bed, giving even more congratulations to the happy couple.

Standing a little off to the side, Perry stared down at the small bundle held carefully in Carla's arms. Isabella's little head and arms poked out from the blanket she was wrapped in, and unknown to the living around him, she radiated a pure, bright light that looked so completely natural. She was a new, fresh soul.

"She's beautiful, Carla," Perry said and his old friend smiled up at him.

"Thanks, Chris," she said before looked back down at her daughter.

It wasn't long before everyone cleared out to give Carla her rest and let her and Turk have some time alone together.

"Do you need a ride, JD? I heard you came here with Turk," Elliot said.

"No, that's okay," JD said. "I'm staying in a place not too far from the hospital, I can walk."

"Well, if you're sure," Elliot said. "See you tomorrow then."

Waving goodbye, she headed off to the women's locker room to grab her stuff and go. Perry and JD headed towards the elevators to take one down to the main floor. The stairs probably would have been quicker, but both were in a bit of a lazy mood and felt no need to rush home.

While waiting for the elevator to reach their floor, Perry couldn't help but notice the hospital's most recent lawyer, Castello, lurking around a room not too far from them and talking on the phone with someone. Not that Perry really cared, but it was beginning to seem like Castello stalked JD around the hospital more than the Janitor did.

"Is there a reason why that lawyer is always on your tail around here, John?" Perry asked.

"What?" JD asked curiously before spotting Castello. "Oh, him? Don't worry about it, he just can't take a joke," JD said vaguely, waving the question away.

There was no way he was going to tell Perry of a reaper's ability to rip a person's soul out _before_ it's their time. Knowing Perry, he'd use that to his advantage every chance he got.

"He sure can hold a grudge though," JD said just as the elevator doors opened. The two stepped inside and took the elevator down to the main floor. Walking out the front entrance, JD said, "I'll call you tomorrow."

Nodding, Perry unlocked his bike and rode away while JD headed off in the opposite direction on foot to his temporary apartment. It was well into the night at this point and the street lights lit up his path home. He was about halfway there when he suddenly heard someone call out his name.

"Hey, John Dorian!"

JD stopped under one of the street lights, confused because whoever called out didn't sound like anyone he knew. He looked around for the owner of the voice, but couldn't see anyone on the street. Just as he was about to keep walking, and maybe walk a little faster because that was just _weird_, someone emerged from the alleyway closest to him and dragged him backwards into it before he could react.

He was thrown to the ground of the dark alleyway and skinned his hands on the rough pavement. Tucking his hands under his arms so that his attacker wouldn't see them heal, JD got to his feet and looked around to see just what he was dealing with.

"So much for the element of surprise," a second man, not the one who had grabbed him, growled at his accomplice with what JD believed to be an Australian accent.

"Well, you wanted to know," the first man said defensively.

"That doesn't mean anything," Australia said. "People look instinctually even if it's not their name being called."

With his back against one of the building's walls, JD wondered if perhaps he could sneak away while the two fought. However, he only managed to take one step towards freedom before he had a gun pointed at him as well as the attention of both men.

"Not so fast there, mate," Australia said, holding the gun calmly in one hand. "Eddy, check his pockets."

Eddy, if that was even his real name, stepped forward and pushed JD to the ground once again. Shuffling through his pockets, he pulled out JD's wallet and flipped it open.

Pulling out his bank card, Eddy said smugly, "Lookie here. John Dorian."

"How very fortunate for us that we ran into you, Johnny-boy," Australia said with a predator's smile as he slowly approached JD.

"Look, guys, you can keep my wallet, but that's all I really have to offer," JD said, holding his hands up defensively.

"We don't want your money, mate," Australia said.

If they didn't want money, then what else could they possibly want from him? Suddenly a whole slew of horrific images raced through his head as to what it was that they wanted to do to him. It was true that he couldn't die, but that didn't mean he couldn't be broken physically or mentally.

Deciding that flight was his best bet, JD turned and bolted down the alleyway and away from the two men. They immediately took chase and it seemed that no matter how many different twists and turns JD took down the labyrinth of alleyways, he just couldn't lose them. It was in between two restaurants that they caught him and he was tackled to the ground right next to a dumpster.

Eddy dragged him up by the front of his shirt and slammed him roughly against the side of the cold metal dumpster. He punched JD across the face before kneeing him in the stomach and tossing him to the ground again. With one arm wrapped around his stomach, JD kept his head down, hoping that the darkness would hide his slowly fading bruises.

"This would've been a lot easier on you, mate, if you didn't run," Australia said, still panting from the chase.

JD just didn't understand any of it. They knew his name, but they didn't want to rob him, so what the hell did they want? Why would they go through so much trouble to chase him down? Had he somehow wronged them in the past? What were they gaining from any of this?

Australia smashed the butt of his gun against his head. JD slumped to the ground and the hand around his stomach moved to cover his head. With one eye closed, he squinted up at the two men and asked, "Why are you doing this?"

"Don't take it personally, kid, we're just doing a job," Eddy said indifferently.

'_That makes me feel **so** much better,_' JD thought sarcastically.

Then the beating started. They punched and kicked him more times then he could count and he didn't think he could hide all his bruises from them, although he was pretty sure they weren't paying too much attention to that. Even though they were anything but gentle and JD could feel bones breaking under their brutal treatment, neither of them did much more aside from punching and kicking. They didn't pull out a knife or a lead pipe, and Aussie didn't use his gun.

It was all very strange, but JD didn't question it. He could lay there and endure it all because eventually they'd have to stop and JD could go home. He'd be all healed up by the time he reached the front door of his apartment complex.

Eventually they did stop, just as he thought they would. All he had to do was pretend he was unconscious and wait for them to leave, then he'd be in the clear.

But it didn't happen like that. Instead he was dragged to his feet and slammed up face first against a wall.

"Again, Eddy? The bloke's had enough," Australia said, exasperated.

"Not quite. We were paid to leave a lasting impression and that's just what I'm going to do," Eddy said.

"You have problems, mate."

'_Wait, paid?_' JD wondered.

His thoughts were cut off though when he felt a hand fumbling with his belt buckle and it was then that he was aware of exactly what kind of 'lasting impression' Eddy wanted to leave on him. His eyes snapped open because suddenly playing possum wasn't good enough. In the one-hundred and thirty-something years that he's been alive (so-to-speak) he's never had to worry about something like this.

This couldn't happen to him. He couldn't let this happen to him!

He knocked the man off him by slamming his head backwards, hitting him right in the nose. Eddy swore as he stumbled back a few paces and JD used this to his advantage by making another run for it. He only made it a few steps though before he was tackled from behind again. With Eddy's arms wrapped around his legs, he went crashing to the ground.

His broken bones shuddered from the impact and for a moment, he lay there dazed. Hands were again at his pants, pulling them down past his boxers.

'_No._'

Fingers wrapped around the elastic of his boxers.

"**No!**" JD shouted.

Survival instincts taking over, he twisted around in place and slammed his hand directly into the man's chest, grabbing hold of the slimy soul that resided there. As his free hand pulled his pants back into place, he tore Eddy's soul free from his body. Pushing the stunned, soulless body off of him, JD scrambled to his feet with Eddy's incorporeal form in his grasp.

"Wha.. what did you do?" Australia's shaky voice asked and the sound of a gun cocking accompanied it.

Of course, the Australian man couldn't see his accomplices soul in JD's hold, but he did see JD plunge his hand into Eddy's chest and he did see Eddy go limp and lifeless when JD pulled his hand back out. That alone was enough to frighten any mortal man.

Both enraged and afraid, Australia pulled the trigger of his gun and shot JD right between the eyes. Stumbling backwards from the force of the gunshot, to JD's horror the soul slipped out of his hand and fell to the ground. Falling to his knees, JD watched as Eddy's soul, separated from its body far too soon, writhed and rotted on the ground. He had to get to it and put it back into its body. It didn't matter what Eddy did or what he tried to do while he was alive, it wasn't his time yet to die.

Weakened from the blood loss, JD crawled toward Eddy's soul. He _needed_ to get it back in its body. JD had only meant to stun Eddy long enough to get away when he had ripped his soul out. He never wanted anything like this to happen.

However, Australia didn't want him to get anywhere near the still body of his friend.

"How are you still alive?" he practically shrieked. "I shot you in the head!"

JD looked up at the panicking man briefly before looking back down at Eddy's twisting form. He couldn't concern himself the Australian man, he had to put the soul back.

"Move," JD hissed as he shakily got to his feet and glared through blood-shot eyes at the man who had positioned himself in front of his friend's body.

"What the hell are you?" Australia asked with wide eyes, raising his gun again.

"Move or your friend dies," JD said.

"Only because you killed him!" he shouted, waving the gun.

The blood stopped flowing from his head and unfortunately his wound chose that moment to seal up.

"You're not human," Australia said breathlessly and the gun steadied.

Before JD could get another word out, the Australian man unloaded all the bullets in his gun into JD. One gun shot was something he could handle, maybe even two, but that many all in a row?

JD collapsed to the ground as pain washed over him. A pool of blood rapidly spread around him and black spots danced in his vision. From his position on the ground, he could still faintly see Eddy's soul. It twisted and writhed on the ground, turning a black sooty color. It shrunk, and its body mutated with thin spines growing out of its shoulders and down its back. Then, for a moment, it lay still on the ground before standing up.

Just before JD's vision faded completely, he saw that what had once been the soul of a human was now a graveling.

Awareness escaped him and for a while he was floating in nothingness.

Fading in and out of consciousness, he was faintly aware of being dragged across the ground.

Distantly he could hear a car.

He knew no more...

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_That's the end of chapter one. What is it about first chapters that just seems so... ick? Well, anyway, that's one of the outcomes of soul-rot. I don't know if _all _souls that rot become gravelings, some of them probably just become bad people or something, but I'm sticking with the gravelings theory._

_Review please!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello everyone! Here's chapter two for you all. As to why I switched to 3rd person POV for this fic, it was partly because of alternating POVs, but also because I wanted to see how well I could do 3rd POV for this particular story. The next fic will probably be 1st person. Just a reminder for everyone, Riley is the animal reaper Perry previously met._

Thank you for all your wonderful reviews!

Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.

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**Chapter 2**

It was nighttime when Riley finished her reaps for the day. Her last one had been an alley cat that always hung around outside a series of restaurants that had been built next to each other. The poor thing had choked to death on some sort of bone.

She watched the alley cat's soul walk away until it disappeared from sight before deciding to grab something to eat from the restaurant's dumpsters. She didn't really _have_ to dig through the dumpster for food, but she didn't feel like heading back to the house that the head of her division, Lewis, had set up for the rest of the kids in her division. They had just recently gotten a new recruit and the girl wouldn't stop crying over the unfortunate situation she found herself it.

Telling the girl to suck it up and get over it hadn't really helped the situation, so Riley had taken to staying outside for as long as she possibly could until things calmed down.

Sitting inside the dumpster, Riley tore open a garbage bag that smelled of food and examined some of the scraps she found carefully before deeming it safe and stuffing it into her mouth. She was about halfway through what she thought was a decent meal when she heard a scuffle going on outside the dumpster. Thinking it was a restaurant worker bringing out another bag of garbage, she carefully peaked over the dumpster's edge, but jumped back when whoever it was was thrown against the side.

'_Definitely not just a restaurant worker,_' she thought as she settled down in a corner at the back of the dumpster and stayed as quite as she could. The last thing she needed was to be dragged into someone else's fight.

Listening carefully to the slightly muffled voices, she concluded that there were three of them, and judging from what she heard them say, it was a two against one fight. Not exactly fair, but what could she really do? She was a little girl and the odds would not be in her favor if she got involved.

So she sat there with her hands over her ears to block out the noise of the fight and waited for the three to finish and leave. It wasn't until she heard the gunshot that she removed her hands in surprise. With her hands at her sides, she continued to wait because surely the fight was close to being done after someone was shot.

"How are you still alive? I shot you in the head!"

Curiosity getting the best of her, she quietly crept forward and peaked over the edge of the dumpster. There were three men. One was bleeding profusely from the head, another was holding a gun, and the third man was laying still on the ground. At the sound of an inhuman shriek, her gaze was drawn away from the body and over to the twitching form of... was that a soul? She couldn't tell. It looked like it was decaying.

'_A soul? But then.. where's its reaper?_' she wondered, but saw nobody else in the alleyway aside from the three men.

Turning her attention back to the heated conversation going on between the two men, her eyes widened when she saw the bullet wound on the first man heal up, and apparently the guy with the gun saw it too.

"You're not human."

'_No, he's a reaper,_' she thought, watching as the second man raised his gun again. '_And he is so screwed._'

Ducking back down into the dumpster, Riley covered her hands over her ears to block out the gunshots as best as she could. Then it all went quiet. Even the sounds of the shriveling soul stopped. Looking back over the side of the dumpster, she saw the man with the gun walking away with one hand dragging the unconscious reaper behind him and the other hand holding steady the dead body of the third man slung over his shoulder.

Trotting in his wake was the hideous form of a graveling.

As soon as the man was out of sight, Riley climbed out of the dumpster and walked over to the scene of the crime. Bypassing the large pool of blood, she walked over to the wallet she spotted on the ground. One of the men must have dropped it. Picking up the wallet, she flipped it open and looked through its contents. There was a bank card, a credit card, a picture of some people-

"Ten dollars, nice," she mumbled to herself, sticking the money into her pocket.

There was also an ID card of some sort with a picture of the reaper on it; John Dorian who was apparently a doctor at Sacred Heart Hospital. Wasn't that the hospital that that grumpy man, Perry, said she could find him at?

Off in the distance, she could hear police sirens. Someone in the restaurant must have called them after hearing multiple gunshots. Not wanting to get involved, she was about to put the wallet back down on the ground for the police to find when she realized that when they find it, they could easily figure out that all the blood on the ground belonged to John Dorian. Then, when they actually find Mr. Dorian, they'll see that he has no wounds on him and that will lead to questions that can't be answered.

"Man!" she griped as she folded the wallet back up and stuffed it into her pocket along with the ten dollars. Just as the flashing lights of the police cruiser came into view, she turned tail and ran off in the opposite direction.

* * *

'_Where the hell is he?_' Perry wondered as he looked down at his watch for what seemed like the millionth time.

JD never called him that morning to tell him his reaps and he wasn't picking up his cell phone or house phone either. They both knew how important their job was and JD was very adamant about getting to a reap on time, so it was extremely strange for him to go AWOL at a time like this.

Perry was sure that he was missing a reap as he paced the halls of the hospital. After calling in to confirm that, yes, JD was supposed to be working that day, but no, he hadn't shown up yet, Perry decided to stop by anyway in case the other man showed up late.

"Hey, Janitor, have you seen Josie today?" he asked.

Pausing in his job of mopping the same spot he'd been mopping for the past hour, the Janitor quirked an eyebrow at him and asked, "Who?"

"John Dorian."

"You mean Scooter?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure. Have you seen him?" Perry asked irritably.

"Nope, not today," the Janitor said with a simple shrug.

Growling in frustration, Perry stalked off and took the elevator up to the plague floors where he spent the next hour or so cooling off and keeping an eye on anyone who might kick the bucket that day. Who knows, maybe he would get lucky and pick out one of his own reaps.

It was close to noon when he decided to take a break from prowling the plague floors. Flipping his cell phone closed after attempting to reach JD on his phone once again, Perry headed down to the second floor to stop by and check in on Carla. Not that he would ever admit it, but she was usually pretty good at brightening his mood.

Knocking on the door of Carla's private room, he walked in to not only see Carla sitting up on her bed, but he also saw Riley, of all people, perched on the edge of Carla's bed talking animatedly with the nurse. She was still dressed in the same worn down clothes he last saw her in, although her leggings were purple now instead of green.

"Hello, Chris," Carla greeted in between munching on her lunch that had probably just been brought in.

"Hi, Carla. Riley, what are you doing here?" Perry asked as he walked over to the bed.

"She's hiding from Kelso who apparently thought she was loitering," Carla said.

"I wasn't loitering," Riley pointed out in her defense. "And I _know_ this isn't a shelter."

Carla smiled at her with a spark of pity in her eyes before asking Perry, "You know her?"

"We met at one of Danny's obedience classes," Perry said.

"Yeah," Riley said, nodding. "And for someone who said I could find him at Sacred Heart, you sure are hard to find. I need to ask you something in private."

"Um, okay," he said, throwing a curious look at Carla who simply shrugged in response.

Hopping off the bed, Riley smiled at Carla and said, "Thanks for the jello Mrs. Carla!" Grabbing Perry by the sleeve of his shirt, she said, "Come on, _Chris._"

Walking out into the hallway with the little girl, the two walked until they reached a less crowded hallway. Looking down at her, Perry asked, "So what did you want to ask me that you couldn't ask in front of Carla?"

Shoving a small hand into the pocket of her jacket, she pulled out a wallet and flipped it open to show a very familiar Sacred Heart Hospital ID card. "Do you know who this is?"

Perry faltered for a moment, knowing that whatever reason why Riley had JD's wallet couldn't be good especially considering the fact that he couldn't get into contact with the kid.

"Newbie.. yeah, I know him," Perry said. "He's in my division."

"Then you should probably know that he's in big trouble," she said.

"What happened?" he asked, feeling numb.

"Well, he was mugged or something," she said with a shrug. "There were two guys. Um, I think one of them is dead, but in the wrong way because his soul rotted."

"How can someone die in the wrong way?" Perry asked, confused.

"I don't know all the technical stuff, I'm only ten!" she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Right," Perry sighed. "What happened to JD. Where is he?"

"I dunno, the other guy took him," she said, shrugging again. "He shot him in the head and when he saw your friend heal, he freaked out and kidnapped him."

'_This just keeps getting better and better,_' Perry thought with a mental groan, feeling a headache come on. '_Someone knows, someone alive. They may not know exactly what JD is, but they know that there's something strange about him and they're probably going to try and find out what. I swear, only Newbie could get himself in this deep._'

"I was going to leave the wallet for the police, but I realized if they figured out who the blood belonged to, they'd get suspicious when they find that your friend's perfectly okay," she explained, holding the wallet out for him to take.

"You did good," he assured her. "But we still need to tell them something."

Just what could he tell them though? He obviously couldn't show them the actual scene of the crime. He'd have to have Riley show them a different place and that wouldn't help in finding out where JD was taken at all. The only lead they might have at this point was to dust the wallet for finger prints.

Holding the wallet by the tips of his fingers so as not to get any more prints on it, Perry headed to the nurses station with Riley at his side to alert the police. The rest of the day passed by in a blur. The police came in and took statements. The wallet was taken in as evidence and Riley pointed them in a direction far from where the actual crime scene had taken place. Riley didn't actually get a good look at the two men because of how dark out it was but she agreed to help with an attempt at an artist's sketch. She also could honestly tell them that one of the men had an accent, Australian or British, she wasn't sure.

From there, before the police even left, the news spread through the hospital grapevine and it wasn't long before Carla, Turk and Elliot heard the news. When he had passed by Carla's room, Perry saw her and Turk on the hospital bed with little Isabella between them, comforting each other. Elliot went on a guilt trip, feeling responsible because she hadn't given JD a ride the previous day, and nothing Keith said could comfort her.

Perry fled the hospital before anyone could stop and talk to him, and he knew someone would try because of his title as JD's cousin who had moved down to help JD through the death of his mentor and brother.

He didn't want to get mixed up in that emotional tidal wave, not when he was having trouble straightening out his own mixed-up emotions. Not that he was overly, emotionally distraught over the whole thing. No, why should he be? JD couldn't die, he could heal from any wound, so he should be perfectly fine in the end of all this. Right? Yes, that's right.

He should be fine because he's practically invincible.

But if he's so invincible, just how the hell did this happen in the first place?

And why was Perry worried? He was only slightly worried, he assured himself, but still...

He was worried.

* * *

Groaning, JD's eyes slid open to see nothing but darkness. It was either night or the lights weren't on. He could just barely make out several dark shapes in the room he woke up in. There was a table... something that might have been a TV. A fridge or maybe it was a large cabinet.

Suddenly light flooded the room and he was blinded. He closed his eyes tight with another groan. His head, which had not yet fully healed, was killing him, and the unpleasant bright lights weren't helping any.

He was sitting in a chair, and he didn't even need to try and move his arms to know that they had been tied behind him tightly. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that this was happening to him.

"You're awake... and alive," Australia said, not sounding too happy about this fact.

"Where am I?" JD asked, squinting up at the man. His headache was beginning to fade away.

"That's not your concern," he said. "I shot you eight times, most of which were fatal wounds, yet here you are, still alive and well."

"I wouldn't say _well_," JD mumbled.

The man frowned, but ignored his comment and continued, "As we speak, I can see your wounds healing at a freakish rate. Bruising, gunshots, all of it. Now how do you explain that, _mate_?"

"It's a miracle?" JD offered with a hopeful smile.

"Don't play dumb with me!" he snarled. "I know you're not human! I've seen enough proof! So just what the hell are you? Are you an alien, a demon, some government experiment gone wrong? Tell me!"

"I'm... an angel," JD said, both testing the man and seeing if he could somehow bullshit his way out of the situation.

"Angels don't kill people, mate," Australia said, shaking his head.

"You don't know that. Angels of vengeance. God did do a lot of smiting back in the day," JD said, gauging the other man's reaction.

"Don't _fuck_ with me," Australia hissed.

"You're right, I'm not an angel," JD said, backing off. "I'm not a demon, or an alien, or anything else out of the ordinary. I'm just a normal person with a genetic birth defect that allows me to heal fast."

"That's bullshit; I shot you in the head. There's no coming back from that," Australia said. "Even if that were true, I still saw what you did to my friend. How do you explain that?"

"He probably had a heart attack or something at an odd time," JD lied. "I'm a doctor, I can tell with these things."

"I saw your hand go _into_ his chest!" he snapped.

"It was a trick of the light, I was just pushing him away," JD said, hoping that this man would buy _something_ he said.

"No, I know what I saw," Australia said.

The man walked around behind him and grabbed the back of his chair. Tilting the chair back a bit, he dragged JD in the chair across the room and over to a couch JD had been too distracted to notice before. Setting JD directly in front of the couch, the man pulled off a blanket that had been draped over the piece of furniture to reveal the body of Eddy.

"You did something to him and now you're going to fix it," he hissed.

"I can't," JD said, his eyes drifting from the body over to the graveling perched on top of the TV, snarling at him.

"Yes you can, now fix him!" Australia snapped.

"No, he's dead and there's nothing I can do about that. I can't bring him back," JD swore, looking over his shoulder and up at the man. "I'm only human."

He was dragged away from the couch, as if his mere presence was desecrating Eddy's memory.

"You're lying!" he said, enraged, and dragged JD back to the center of the room. "I _will_ get you to fix him and you _will_ tell me what you are."

"I'm just like you, I swear," JD insisted. Watching the man walk out of the room for a moment, he called after him, "This is all just a big misunderstanding!"

Returning a moment later with a bat in hand, the Australian man said, "You'll tell me _everything_, even if I have to beat it out of you."

The man raised the bat high in the air and JD was helpless to do anything. He couldn't move away and he couldn't defend himself. All he could do was shut his eyes and brace himself for the onslaught. The baseball bat came down and struck him across the face.

'_Just when I've barely finished healing from the first attack..._'

* * *

_End of chapter 2. Hope you guys didn't mind Riley's reappearance. That was pretty much her big part in this story._

Review please!


	3. Chapter 3

_Hello all my readers! Here's chapter three for you all. Enjoy!_

Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

With the taut lease held tightly in his hand, Perry walked the alleyways for the fourth time that week. Danny walked the area around him with his nose to the ground, pulling against the lease and attempting to walk further ahead from Perry than was physically possible. After leaving the hospital the day he found out about JD's kidnapping, he had decided to stay at the kid's apartment so that he could watch over the overgrown puppy until JD was found.

However, he severely doubted the police's ability to find JD, especially because of all the false information he had to give them, so he decided to do a little searching of his own. So once again, he found himself back in the alleyway where the actual crime took place. He knew he wouldn't find anything just like he hadn't found anything the other three times he had been there. The blood had been washed away a few days back and there was nothing else in the alley that even hinted toward a past crime.

In a perfect world, the kidnapper would have dropped his wallet, or Danny would catch scent of the man and be able to lead Perry to wherever it was that JD was being kept. Of course, in a perfect world this wouldn't have happened to begin with. Back down on planet earth though, there was nothing he could do without a lead besides take care of JD's dog and keep up on his reaps.

Speaking of his reaps, he had been swamped with souls the past few days and he had yet another reap coming up in about an hour. On the day of JD's disappearance, when Perry got back to the kid's apartment, he decided he should call up Barbara and inform her of the situation. He had never talked to the woman before and only knew of her through a couple stories JD told him. After a little bit of digging through JD's things, he found her number and called her up.

The conversation had been... odd, though not the strangest conversation he's ever had with someone before.

_ "Hello, Barbara?"_

_"Yeah, who the hell is this?" she asked, sounding confused._

_"Perry Cox, I'm-"_

_"The new guy, yeah." she said. "So what can I do for you, Perry? I'm not wiring you anymore money."_

_"No, I'm not calling about money."_

_"Good, because that was a one-time deal. Have you gotten a job yet?" she asked._

_"No. Listen, I'm calling about John.. JD. He's been kidnapped."_

_There was a pause._

_"By who?"_

_"We don't know. Two random guys. We haven't heard from him or anything about it for a couple days now."_

_There was another pause, longer than the first, and for a moment, Perry wondered if he should tell her about the fact that these two men knew JD was 'different.' Perhaps she could give some helpful insight on the situation that he wasn't seeing himself. Then again, maybe he shouldn't worry her. It wasn't like there was anything either of them could do._

_Finally, she spoke._

_"**Damn.** Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Joey's strong, he can take care of himself." she sighed. "In the meantime, I'll pull some strings and have the Higher Ups transfer all of his reaps to you until he returns."_

_"You can do that?" he asked in disbelief._

_"On the rare occasion that a reaper is physically unable to perform his reaps, the Higher Ups will make an exception to the rules. Don't concern yourself with the details. I'll just give you both his and your reaps and you take care of it. Do you have a cell phone?"_

_"Yeah"_

_"Great, give me your number so I can contact you with your reaps."_

Tugging on the leash, Perry whistled to the puppy, "Come on mutt, I need to take you back before I go to my next job."

Wagging his tail, Danny happily followed Perry out of the alleyway and back to the apartment. As expected, it had been another unsuccessful search and he wondered why he kept going back there when he knew he wouldn't find anything.

After dropping Danny off and filling up his water dish, Perry hopped on his bicycle and headed for his last reap of the day. It wasn't at the hospital this time. Apparently another person decided they'd rather die at home than at a hospital. Although that seemed to be happening more and more lately. With the government's lack of progress on the whole plague epidemic, people were beginning to lose hope.

Following the directions to the address he had looked up online, Perry found himself traveling out of the cityscape and into a more neighborhood-friendly area. Finally stopping in front of the home of his reap, Perry could understand why someone would choose to die here rather than a hospital. The house was nice, nicer than any apartment he's ever lived in, and the landscaping was well done too.

Setting his bike near the brick wall surrounding the yard, Perry walked up to the front door and, out of courtesy, rang the doorbell. No one answered, and Perry didn't know if there was anyone else in the house aside from P. Breggar because any car that might have been in the driveway was probably in the garage.

Testing the door knob, he found that it was unlocked. Apparently it was a nice enough neighborhood so that people didn't feel the need to keep there doors locked all the time.

Shrugging, he invited himself inside and called out, "Mr. or Mrs. Breggar? I just moved in down the street. My last name is Broggor and I was wondering if you've been getting my mail?"

No answer.

He looked down at his watch to see that he had around five minutes left. Anyone that far along with the plague probably wasn't conscious. Seeing that Breggar wasn't in the living room, he headed up the stairs in search of a bedroom, knowing from experience that the dieing tend to like dieing in their beds.

He came across two bathrooms, an office and a game room before he finally found the bedroom. Just as he suspected, lying on the king sized bed in the spacious bedroom was the still form of his reap. At least, he hoped it was his reap. How awkward would it be if he woke a random person up from their nap?

"Breggar? P. Breggar!" he called out as he approached.

Stopping before the bed, he could clearly see that the middle aged man laying under the covers wasn't breathing and was looking rather sickly and pale at the moment. Reaching forward, Perry pressed his fingers against the man's neck to check for a pulse.

There wasn't a single heart beat and the Breggar's five minutes were up.

With his hand still on the man's neck, he dragged his fingers across cold skin and released the soul within. Breggar's soul sat up out of his body and stood up from the bed. He eyed Perry curiously before his gaze was drawn back to his body.

"That goddamn stupid face mask didn't do crap," he said with a frown. "Guess this means I won't be going into work tomorrow."

"Nope. So are you ready to go then?" Perry asked, trying to move things along. Between dealing with reaps (this one being his sixth) and searching for clues on JD's kidnapper, he was ready head back to the apartment and relax.

"What are you supposed to be? Some kind of angel?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow at Perry.

"Grim reaper actually," Perry said simply as he walked out of the room with the man trailing behind him. Not seeing any lights, he decided to make small talk, "Are you married, Breggar? I don't see too many family pictures around here."

"No ball and chain for me. I am a proud bachelor," the man said with a content smile. "I'm dead, so that means I'm going on to the afterlife or something, right?"

"Yup, bright lights and all that other fancy special effects," Perry said, walking through the house and wondering just what was taking those lights so long. "Do you have any close family?"

Sometimes reminding someone of the people they'll see in the afterlife gets them there quicker.

"No siblings," he said. "Nobody really that close either. Both my parents died a while back."

"I bet you'll be glad to see them then," Perry said as they entered the living room. "Or not, if you don't want to. Everything's pretty easy-going when you're dead."

When you're dead and not a reaper, that is.

Finally the lights came in the form of a nice fancy car. Breggar's eyes widened at the sight before a grin spread across his face.

Speaking of cars...

"Hey Breggar!" Perry called after the man as he approached the vehicle. "Do you have a car?"

"Yeah," the man said. "I won't be needing it now though. Keys are on a hook by the door. You can have it!"

Then he was gone along with the lights.

Heading back to the front door, Perry spotted the keys on a hook just as Breggar said. He left the house, closing the front door behind him before walking over to the garage. Flipping through the different keys, he grabbed what he believed was the remote to the garage and pressed the small green button.

Slowly the garage door opened up. Perry really wasn't expecting much because why would the man's lights be a nice fancy car if he already had a nice car to begin with?

Apparently that wasn't the case though.

"Hell yes."

A black Jaguar. It wouldn't surprise him if Breggar collected nice cars. Personally, he would always like his old Porsche the most, but he couldn't deny that this was a damn nice vehicle.

"No more bike rides for me. From now on, Death is traveling in style."

* * *

It scuttled around the room, from the TV to the cabinets to the table and down to the floor. Its long, ape-like arms hung by Its side with Its knuckles dragging against the carpet. It stood crouched over on stubby legs and stared at the still form sitting in a chair in the center of the room.

It bared Its teeth and growled at the man in the chair, but he didn't acknowledge It. He was either asleep or unconscious, not that It really cared. It could feel no compassion, only rage and hatred. It wanted destruction and revenge. It didn't know why It felt this way, all It knew was that it was the man's fault.

Snarling with Its back arched, It pounced on the man's unaware form.

* * *

_There you go, chapter three. I know nothing about cars and all that, so I just googled a couple cool cars and picked one at random. Just so you know, there are normal gravelings and then there are the ones like Eddy that are meaner and don't even follow the few rules that gravelings themselves have._

_Review please!_


	4. Chapter 4

Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Almost a month had passed since JD's disappearance and Perry was at the end of his rope. Since he had taken on JD's reaps as well as his own, his work load had doubled. On a good day, he only had to take care of four people; normally the daily death rate was between six and ten people. On a bad day, his reaps would overlap and he'd be forced to show up late for one. Considering the unreasonable hours he was forced to work as well as the location most of his reaps usually took place, he felt like he was back working at the hospital.

On top of all that, the police were no closer to finding JD. The trail had gone cold before the investigation even started. They couldn't identify the owner of the fingerprints on the wallet and that had been the only lead they had.

Many people, especially Carla, Turk and Elliot, were still very worried about the young doctor, but in the weeks that had passed since his disappearance, a new situation had occurred that distracted everyone. Apparently a higher-up from the White House had been visiting California for classified reasons when he had gotten into a horrible car accident and was brought to Sacred Heart. The man, Steve Harris (a name they believed to be fake), was currently in a coma on the second floor in his own private room which was always being guarded by at least two people.

Elliot had been chosen to be his doctor and although the only information she knew about him was his medical records, she was not at liberty to divulge any information on the man. That didn't mean she couldn't speculate with the rest of the hospital though.

"He _could_ have just been here visiting family, but I bet it's something much bigger considering how secretive they're being about everything," Elliot said conspiratorially to Carla who, after taking a week off at home, had come in to visit everyone and left Isabella at home with Turk.

"They probably just don't want people knowing that he's here," Carla said. "Information like that getting out to the public might put him in danger which means that he plays an important role in the White House."

"Well, he's nobody I recognize, and I looked up as many White House staff members as I could," Lavern said.

"Then he's probably someone working on the inside," Carla theorized.

Unable to stand the gossip-fest any longer, Perry stepped forward and said, "I would like to point out, ladies, that none of this even really matters considering the man's brain is the equivalent to a sack of potatoes and any super secret spy work you believe he's done in the past will not be on his agenda in the future."

"You don't know that, Chris," Carla said. "People come out of comas all the time."

"Not when their brain activity is practically down to zero," Perry said.

"How do you even know that? That information's confidential," Elliot said with her hands on her hips.

"I have my ways," Perry said vaguely.

"You better not go around spreading that information, I could get in big trouble for it," Elliot said with a stern glare.

Resisting the urge to call her 'Barbie', Perry said with mock-sincerity, "I would never want to get _you_ in trouble, Elliot. Now if you'll all excuse me, I have things to do."

He left down the hall, not caring to hear a response from the three women, and headed to what was his last reap of the day. Luckily, it was an easy one. The man was somewhere in his eighties, so he was ready and willing to go. Perry didn't even have to tell him it was time for him to go before the bright lights came and took him away.

Reaps like that were always his favorite. No forced small talk or having to comfort the soul in their grief over their death. It was the reaper's version of bedside manner, and that had never been his strong-point when he was a doctor. A part of him missed the days when JD would follow behind him like a little puppy dog and take care of that stuff for him; Not that he'd ever admit that though.

He had been on his way out of the hospital to head to the kid's apartment and take care of Danny for the remainder of the day when he passed by the door to Ted's old office and heard a rather interesting conversation going on inside.

"He's your problem now. I just told you to rough him up a bit, not kidnap him," came the hushed, heated tone of Castello, muffled through the closed door.

Back-tracking a few steps, Perry leaned in close to the door and listened in on the conversation for curiosity and suspicion's sake. After all, Jack _had_ been stalking JD and giving him the evil eye months before the kid's disappearance.

"I don't know what you're talking about, he seems normal to me," Castello said in a tone of voice that Perry could tell didn't quite speak the truth.

"Eavesdropping, huh?" the Janitor said from behind him, as if appearing from nowhere. "You can hear better from the vent in the next room over."

"Shh!" Perry hissed, holding up a hand to silence the Janitor. Motioning for the Janitor to come closer to listen, Perry turned his attention back to the one-sided conversation going on in the room.

"I don't know, do what you want, just don't involve me," Castello said. "I paid you what I promised, so stop calling here. If I hear from you again, I'll call the police on you myself."

At the sound of the phone call ending, Perry decided to make his presence known and let himself into the office. The Janitor stood in the doorway, apparently curious as to what was going on and deciding that the situation was much more interesting than pretending to clean something up.

"Mr. Castello," Perry greeted calmly, and the lawyer spun around to face him with a startled look on his face. "From what I overheard, it sounds like you've gotten yourself into a bit of trouble."

"No, no trouble," Castello said, pasting a reassuring smile on his face. "If you must know, I was just on the phone with an old client from a previously unsuccessful case. Some people just can't let things go."

Stepping up beside Perry, the Janitor commented mildly to the doctor, "He seems like the kind of guy to hold a grudge, don't you think?"

"Do I know you two?" Castello asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm the janitor of this hospital and I've been here a lot longer than you have," the Janitor said, taking on that fake, offended tone as if insulted that the lawyer didn't know who he was.

"The only thing you need to know about me is that I'm John Dorian's cousin," Perry said, staring the lawyer down.

Seeming to go a shade paler, Jack Castello cleared his throat before saying, "Well, it's nice to meet you two. So sorry about your cousin, but if you two will excuse me, I have legal work I need to take care of."

He moved to leave, but Perry placed a hand on his shoulder, freezing the man in his tracks.

"Not so fast there, Castello," Perry said, forcing the man back a few steps and away from the door. "Just what was that previously unsuccessful case on? Was it the one where a lawyer hires someone to rough someone else up a bit and then that hired someone ends up kidnapping that other someone?"

"He never did like Scooter," the Janitor said with a small frown.

"I don't know what you two are talking about," Castello insisted, pulling away from Perry and standing his ground.

Brushing his finger against nose, Perry crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Oh no? Well then perhaps you were speaking of a future case in which a janitor and a concerned cousin were charged with the assault and castration of one Jack Castello via a knife-wrench and other various paraphernalia found in said lawyer's office all due to the lawyer's obvious connection with the recent kidnapping of doctor John Dorian, and let me give you a little preview, Jackie, on what the verdict will be that the jury reaches: We find the janitor and concerned cousin _noo-aawt_ guilty of all charges as they were completely justified in their actions against the now-severely mutilated, child-molesting lawyer who has recently lost his ability to produce children of his own. Am I making myself clear, Castello, or do I need to do a demonstration?"

"Y-you can't do anything to me," Castello said. "You'll go to jail."

"Lurch, go get your knife-wrench," Perry said.

"Great! I've been wanting to use that on someone," looking over at Castello, the Janitor added, "And maybe I'll bring back a few _friends_ of the kid, if you know what I mean."

"Wait!" Castello said, stopping the Janitor before he could leave. "I didn't mean for him to get taken, I just.."

The lawyer trailed off, not wanting to say anything that would further piss the other two men off, and Perry had a feeling that he was lying about not wanting JD to get kidnapped. He was at least partly pleased with the outcome of the whole thing, but was hiding how he really felt for obvious reasons. Perry would let it slide though if Castello could help him get the kid back.

"Just tell us what you know," Perry said. "Who took him? Where can we find them. A phone number, license plate, anything."

"There were two men," Castello finally said. "Edward Hall and Cade Davies..."

* * *

He was on the floor now with his hands tied behind his back and his ankles tied together. Apparently sitting in a chair was too good for him. He didn't really remember being moved, but he was having trouble keeping track of a lot of things lately, and as the days dragged on, his perception of the world grew more and more fuzzy.

He hadn't had a thing to eat or drink since he had been taken. If he had been alive, he was sure that he would have been dead by now, but since he couldn't die, the lack of food and water just sapped at his energy which in turn slowed his metabolism and thus effected his healing. That was the only reason he could think of to explain why it took longer and longer to heal after each encounter with the Australian man.

'_Wasn't it the British that originally came to Australia?_' he wondered blearily. '_Maybe he's actually British... Or maybe it's just a fake accent.. **Did** the British found Australia? I skipped history in college.. I think the last time I had a history class was before there was a World War II to report... I could really use a burger right now.._'

He was sure that if he tried hard enough, he could hop his way to freedom. He didn't want to put the effort into it though because he had no idea where he was. For all he knew, the door was locked, and he also had no idea when his kidnapper would return to try and get information out of him.

'_Captor, not kidnapper. I'm old enough to be his grandfather..._'

JD kept his eyes closed as he lay on the carpet, not wanting to see Eddy's decomposing body still laying on the couch before him. He really wished that his captor would just cut his losses and get rid of the thing. It was really stinking up the place and JD wondered how the other man could even stand it. For some reason though, no matter what JD told him, the Australian/possibly British man still thought he could bring Eddy back to life. Why he'd want to at this point of decomposition was completely beyond JD. Perhaps his captor thought he could heal the body too.

JD heard the squeak of door hinges and footsteps on the carpet as the Australian man entered the room. He mentally sighed as he had still not yet fully healed from the man's last assault, but braced himself anyway and waited for the attack. With his hands behind his back, there was really not much else he could do besides lay there.

"I'm getting really tired of this, mate, as I'm sure you are too," the other man said. "If you just tell me what I want to know, I'll ease up on you."

"I can't fix your friend," JD rasped quietly for what felt like the millionth time.

"For some reason, you seem to think not fixing him is an option," Australia said. "It's not. If he doesn't walk out of here alive, then neither do you. You may be a hard bloke to kill, but I'll find a way if I have to."

The footsteps came closer until they were right next to him and JD squinted up at the man for a moment before closing his eyes again.

"I've asked you this before and I'll ask you again," his captor said. "You're not human, so just what the hell are you?"

It was a question he asked daily, and the whole thing had become one long, never-ending, almost pointless dance. Still, JD looked up at the man, stared him directly in the eyes, and said, "I _am_ human. Just a normal person."

It was a simple declaration, but it always set the other man off. Clearly he had rage problems that he should resolve in an anger management class, not that JD would ever tell him that.

A well-aimed kick to the chest knocked the wind out of him.

"You're lying! I know what I saw!" the man screamed. "Now tell me what you are!"

Wheezing, JD said, "Human."

As the man brought out the bat that JD had become well acquainted with during his time with the Australian man, for a moment he wondered why the information was so important to his captor. Perhaps it was a want for revenge that drove him to find the answer, or maybe it was even simple fear of the unknown. Whatever the reason, JD didn't want to dwell on it now because right now he needed to separate himself from the physical situation at hand.

He wasn't laying on the floor being assaulted by a man with a bat, no, he was hanging out at the bar with his friends. He was laughing, having a good time, and enjoying an appletini. Elliot would be going on about something that happened to her that day in a high-pitched voice. Turk and Carla would be enjoying a quick break away from Isabella who had been keeping them up at night lately. And Perry, well, Perry was still alive and off in a corner nursing a scotch and ignoring him.

Painful reality was pulling him back against his will though. As much as he wished he was at the bar with his friends, he couldn't completely ignore the screamed insults or the never ending impact of the bat. He was hit repeatedly on the head, his stomach and sides, his arms behind his back, his legs, everywhere. He curled in on himself as it was his only protection against the onslaught.

He wasn't sure how much more he could take of this treatment. He just wanted it to stop. He didn't deserve this,_ nobody_ deserved this. The man wanted answers, so... what was the harm in giving him a little information? It wasn't like he could do anything with it. Nobody would believe him anyway, and for all the Australian man knew, it could just be another lie.

Through the screamed demands to know what he was, JD finally whispered, "Reaper."

The assault didn't stop though. Perhaps he hadn't heard him?

So, with a rasping voice dried out from lack of water, JD said as loudly as he could, "Reaper. Reaper! I'm a grim reaper!"

The attack paused, but before the Australian man could comprehend what he just said, the door to the room slammed open as if kicked open by the Devil himself. That was probably exactly who his captor thought it was too because, through double vision, JD could make out the blurry form of his old mentor. Perry Cox looked so completely beyond pissed that JD was sure that if it wasn't for the smell of a dead body, the air would smell like sulfur.

"You just made your last mistake," Perry said in a deadly tone before his fist went flying forward, striking the Australian man in the face.

Australia went stumbling back a few paces from the force of the blow and away from JD. Shaking his head, he recovered a second later and lunged at Perry with the bat raised high. Perry caught the bat before it could hit him though and tore it from the man's grasp, turning it on him instead. Striking the Australian man in the head with the bat, JD's captor went down hard and stayed down.

While JD was overjoyed with Perry's rescue and was even a little bit happy about the man getting what he deserved, Perry didn't stop his assault even though the other man was down and out for the count.

"Perry, no!" JD called out, attempting to break through his old mentor's rage since he couldn't stand up and stop him. "Stop, _stop it!_"

There was a sickening crack and then all went silent. The bloody bat fell from Perry's grasp.

'_No.._' JD thought and his mind went numb. He stared past Perry's feet at the man's form that was still, too still. "Perry, you didn't..."

The older doctor turned away from the body without a glance back and moved over to JD. Kneeling down next to him, he worked on removing the JD's bindings while being mindful of his most recent injures. Still shocked by the whole thing, JD stared past him and at the crushed-in face of his captor.

"He's not.. _dead_, is he?" JD finally asked.

"Don't tell me you actually care," Perry said, throwing him a look as he undid the last of the bindings.

"I don't but..." JD trailed off, keeping his eyes on the man's body. "Is he?"

"Well, gee, Cindy, judging from the crushed skull, I'd have to say that's a big, fat yes. Of course, if your urge to play 'doctor' is _so_ great, I could leave you here to work on him and his friend, although at this point I'd have to say that a more accurate term for the game would be to 'play mortician.'" Stopping his rant, he pulled JD into a sitting position and gave him a once-over with a serious look on his face, "What I'm more interested in knowing is how you're doing. You don't look so good."

"I'll be fine," JD assure him, "I can heal."

Looking over Perry's shoulder, JD eyed the body cautiously. He wondered if perhaps this was the way the man was supposed to go. Maybe the man's reaper did the deed before he came back into the house. Just as he began to feel hopeful about the situation, he saw the back of a sooty form struggled its way out of the chest of the dead body.

"Shit," he hissed.

"What?" Perry asked.

As if to answer his question, the sooty form rose its head out of the body and let out an unearthly shriek.

Twisting around in place, Perry stared at the demonic creature with a shocked expression and asked, "What the hell is that?"

"They're called gravelings," JD said, pressing his numb hands against the ground and dragging his feet under him, attempting to stand. "Help me up, we have to go now!"

Slinging one of JD's arms over his shoulder, Perry dragged the younger doctor to his feet. The graveling had completely freed itself of the body at this point and stood calmly over the corpse, eyeing both doctors with a murderous glare. Together, the two shuffled out of the room, being careful to keep a safe distance from the creature, and managed to safely make their way out of the house.

As soon as Perry had JD safely buckled up in the front seat of his car, he turned to the younger man and asked, "So are you going to explain to me just what the hell a graveling is?"

"They're rotted souls," JD said after clearing his dry throat. He leaned his head against the cool glass of the window. "Although not all gravelings are rotted souls, but nobody really knows where the other kind came from. Reapers can't intentionally kill people, if we do, chances are that it ends the person's life before it's their time and that rots their soul." He paused to sigh before saying, "Gravelings are usually the ones to cause death. We don't really see them much in the plague division because they prefer sudden and accidental death."

"They _cause_ death?" Perry asked, making sure he heard that right.

"Yeah, like if a piano fell on someone, the graveling was the one to snap the wire holding it up," JD explained.

Turning on the ignition, Perry pulled away from the small house.

"We're not telling Barbara about this," Perry said after a moment of silence.

Thinking about his own graveling that had disappeared almost a week back and was probably out killing people at that very moment, JD agreed, "Yeah, I think that would be best."

"When you think about it, being a graveling isn't much different from the type of person he had been before," Perry said while he drove.

JD nodded and after another moment of silence, asked, "Where'd you get the car?"

"I think I earned it after having to do both your job and mine while you were busy being kidnapped," Perry said.

"You stole it, didn't you?"

"_No,_ for your information, Newbie, the man said I could have it," Perry insisted.

"Where are we going?" JD asked with drooping eyes. He didn't recognize the area, so he didn't know where Perry planned on heading. Personally, he wanted to go home and go to bed for at least a week. Exhaustion was taking over fast and he just wanted to take some time to sleep and heal.

"I'm going to bring you to the hospital in a while, after you've healed," Perry said. "They'll want to check you out anyway, and after the police get a statement from you, we can put this whole thing behind us."

"Aw, can't I just go home?" JD whined.

"Suck it up, Clarissa, you'll be fine," Perry said. Glancing over at JD, he asked with a glint of concern in his eyes that JD was too tired to notice, "You will be okay, right?"

Figuring that Perry was talking about his emotional state rather than his physical state, he nodded and said quietly, "Yeah, I'll be okay."

He _would_ be okay, he knew that. Yes, it had been a horrible experience, but he was safe now and it wasn't as if he had never dealt with pain before. After all, he had had Dan for a brother and Dan got him into situations that were much worse than being smacked around with a bat. The time he woke up in a coffin six feet under after being mauled by lions comes to mind. Also, he wasn't really too distraught over the death of the two men considering he _was_ Death and dealt with people dying on a daily basis. Really, the only think that he was worried about was the two rogue gravelings running around, but he'd deal with that later if he had to.

"Could we at least stop somewhere for food? I haven't had anything to eat or drink since I was taken," JD said, feeling his stomach do a flip at the mention of food.

"Of course," Perry said, hiding the rage he felt at the thought of JD being starved for close to a month.

He went through the drive-through of a fast food restaurant and ordered the largest meals on the menu. Parking in the parking lot, the two ate in silence.

* * *

_I'm ending it here so I can go grab some dinner myself. As I said before, this story will be shorter than the previous one which is why the rescue's already happened. Granted, I'm only halfway done, so there are still a couple more chapters coming after this._

_Also, I don't know when I'll get the next chapter out. My three week semester break starts next week and I'll be going home where there's no internet. I'll write over the break, I just don't know when I'll be able to post._

_Review Please!_


	5. Chapter 5

_Hey everyone. Here's chapter five for you all._

Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Standing in the restroom of the fast food restaurant, JD wiped the last bit of stray blood off his skin as best as he could and tossed the wet, bloody paper towel into the trash along with several others. Looking back up at the mirror, he frowned at the sight of the two angry looking bruises that covered a good portion of his face and tentatively prodded at them with his fingertips. Wincing, his hand dropped to his side. It had been close to an hour now and those two bruises along with several other matching bruises covering various parts of his body had yet to heal and fade away.

"Why are they still there?" Perry asked as he leaned against the wall behind JD and watched him.

"I'm not sure," JD said. "Maybe I'm just healing slower because I haven't been eating and I'm tired."

JD doubted that was the reason. He had felt himself stop healing ten minutes ago.

"Or maybe the Higher-Ups have a hand in this," JD reasoned. "It's kind of a good thing when you consider it. It wouldn't have been very believable if I told the police I attacked - you said his name was Cade?- with the bat in self-defense, but didn't have any injuries myself."

"I guess," Perry said, though he didn't sound too happy about it. "Let's just get you to the hospital."

"Fine," JD sighed. "Let's get this over with."

On the drive over, they got their story worked out to tell everyone. After striking back at his captor, JD managed to escape and Perry found him wandering the streets close to his apartment later on. The hospital became even more of a mad house than usual when Perry finally dragged JD in to get looked at. Carla, who had been on her way out at the time of their arrival, set about spreading the news that JD was back while JD himself was whisked away for a variety of different tests.

Personally, JD would have to say that the most difficult part of the night was making sure that he had all the right emotions of a man who had not only been held captive for a month, but also believed he killed a man. He decided to go with 'shocked disbelief' over the whole thing rather than 'emotionally hysterical.' At least he could truthfully play the part of someone who was relieved to be out of the situation. It wasn't that he didn't care about either man's death, he did feel a little guilty, but because he dealt with death everyday, he didn't feel guilty _enough_ and he didn't want to make anyone suspicious.

"I was walking home when they pulled me into an alley," JD told the officer getting his statement while he waited for the doctor to come back and give him a diagnosis. "While they were arguing over something, I don't remember what, I made a run for it, but they eventually caught up to me. When one of them attacked me, he just collapsed. I don't know why, maybe a heart attack or something. The other man with the accent, I think he was a little unstable, he thought I did something to his partner, so he knocked me out. I woke up tied to a chair later on and the man with the accent kept telling me to fix his friend, but obviously I couldn't."

He paused for effect, then said, "I don't know where the house is and I don't know anything about either man, just that the one that collapsed is named Eddy."

"Could you tell me how you got away again, Mr. Dorian?" The officer asked.

"I managed to loosen the rope binding my hands and when he came at me with the bat, I eventually managed to pull it away from him and... well, I hit him until I was sure he'd stay down and then I fled. Things get a little fuzzy at that point. I remember walking somewhere and then Chris, my cousin, found me," JD said.

It was at that point that Carla walked in. She frowned at the officer before walking over to where JD sat on the hospital bed.

"Are you quite done?" She asked the officer. "He just got back, you know. He needs rest, not you guys asking him a million questions."

"I have everything I need for now," the officer said as he flipped closed the small notebook. "We'll contact you if we have anymore questions."

As soon as he left the room, Carla turned to JD and asked, "How are you feeling, Bambi?"

"A little banged up, but otherwise fine," JD assured her.

"If you're sure," she said, then pulled out his chart. "I grabbed your chart from the interns that checked you out. Aside from the bruising, everything looks good. No broken bones or fractures or anything."

"That's good," he said with a small smile. "Kelso said I can come back into work when I feel up to it. No more than two weeks off though."

"You take off as much time as you need," Carla said, resting a gentle hand on his un-bruised shoulder. "I'll deal with Kelso if needs be."

"Thanks Carla."

"You know I'm here if you need someone to talk to, right?" she asked.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "But really, I'm going to be okay. I'm just glad to be back."

Being careful of his bruises, she gave him a gentle hug before pulling away and saying, "Turk is going to stop by later after I get home and take Isabella off his hands."

"How is Izzy?" JD asked, having only seen her that one time when she was born.

"She's doing really well," Carla said. "I mean, it's tough, but we're slowly getting the hang of it. You'll have to stop by and see her sometime soon."

"Yeah, I'd love to see her," JD said.

Carla left soon after that and it seemed like only a few minutes had passed before Turk was there. JD figured he probably sped the whole way to the hospital.

"Vanilla bear!" he shrieked, bouncing over to JD's bed. The smile dropped from his face as he took in all the bruises he could see and wondered how many there were that he couldn't see. "Man, Carla wasn't kidding, you're a mess."

"It's only bruises though, so I consider myself lucky," JD said.

"But still.."

"Hey, I'm back with my chocolate bear and that's all that matters right now," JD said then held his arms out for a hug.

"I hate to interrupt such a _heart-warming_ moment, but I think I'm going to head home, John, if Turk can give you a ride back to your place," Perry said, leaning against the door frame.

"Yeah, it's no problem," Turk said.

"Great," Perry said. "Oh, I talked to Barbara and she said she'd call you tomorrow, so give me a call afterwards. Don't forget to fill your prescription."

"Prescription?" Turk asked after Perry left.

"It's just some pain killers," JD said, waving away his friend's concern.

After signing himself out, Turk made a quick stop at a pharmacy to pick up JD's medicine before driving him back to his apartment where Danny just about exploded with joy at the sight of JD. With the almost fully-grown pup just about glued to his side, JD said, "Thanks Turk. I'd love for you to stay and chat, but I'm exhausted."

"You get some sleep then and I'll talk to you tomorrow. Call if you need anything," Turk said, then left his friend in peace.

Locking the door after Turk left, JD trudged to his room with Danny at his heals trying to sniff as much of JD as he could. After a few failed attempts at pushing Danny away, JD gave up and let the dog stick to him as he changed out of the hospital scrubs he had been given and got ready for bed. Dressed in clean PJs with clean teeth, JD flopped down on his bed with Danny right next to him and fell asleep.

* * *

The phone was ringing _again._ It felt as if he had only just gotten back to sleep after Barbara's call before it started ringing again. It was early, that much he knew, so who would be calling him at such an ungodly hour if it wasn't Barbara? The first reap of the day didn't start until nine in the morning, so he should be allowed to get a little extra shut-eye, right?

The phone stopped ringing, but just as JD began to drift off, it started ringing once again.

'_Apparently sleeping in is too much to ask for,_' he thought bitterly. '_It better not be a persistent telemarketer._'

"Hello?" he finally said which basically translated into: _What_ do you _want?!_

"Newbie, we have a problem," Perry said, skipping past pleasantries and getting straight to the point.

"Perry, your first reap isn't until nine, okay? So stop calling and let me sleep," JD grumbled, still laying in bed with his eyes closed.

"It followed me home," Perry said.

"...You got a dog?" JD asked.

"No, would you wake up and listen for one moment, Princess? You can catch up on your beauty sleep later because right now we have Cade's graveling to worry about," Perry snapped.

JD paused for a moment to process what Perry was telling him before asking, "Cade's graveling... It followed you home?"

"Yes, Newbie, I believe that's what I've been trying to tell you."

"Well, is it doing anything?" JD asked.

"No, not at the moment. It's just pacing around the house, staring at me," Perry said.

"I don't really know what to tell you. I'm not a graveling expert," JD said, running a tired hand through his hair. "I didn't get a chance to tell you this last night, but I accidentally did the same thing to Eddy and his graveling haunted me for a little bit, but then it went away on its own."

"So I'm just supposed to wait for Cade here to go away?" Perry asked with a tone that said he thought that was a stupid idea.

"That's the only solution I can think of, but be careful because they like to cause trouble," JD said. "You know, Doug would be the reaper to go to with questions. He has the same problem all the time."

"Pee-Pants is a reaper? _That_ explains a lot," Perry muttered.

"Do you have a pen? I might as well give you your reaps now," JD said with a small sigh.

"Yeah, hold on," Perry said. "..Okay, let's hear it."

"Slow day today, you only have two," JD said before listing off the information he had written down when Barbara called, "A. B. Morris at Sacred Heart, room 317. E.T.D is at 9:23am. Then there's W. R. Freston at Sacred Heart, room 425. E.T.D is 11:37am."

"Got it," Perry said after a moment. "Do you need a ride there today?"

"No thanks. I'm only bruised up, I can still ride Sasha," JD said. "If we're all set, I'm going back to sleep. Call me if the graveling gives you any trouble."

"Yeah, yeah. Go back to sleep, Delilah," Perry said.

Pressing the off button on the cordless phone, JD dropped it on the nightstand and then was out like a light.

* * *

Cade's graveling followed him all the way to the hospital. Perry didn't know how it did it. He hadn't seen it at all on the drive over. Of course, considering what it was, he wasn't too surprised that it had some mysterious way of getting around to different places.

As if worrying about a rogue graveling wasn't enough, Perry ran into yet another problem in the form of Jordan Sullivan standing by the front entrance of Sacred Heart. Perry hadn't talked to her since that day he forgot Jack's name and decided that the memory loss wasn't worth it. He hadn't seen much of her either and overall tried to avoid another confrontation with her that was bound to end in disaster.

Yet there she stood in front of the hospital like a dragon guarding the castle's gate.

'_Maybe I can sneak by without her noticing,_' he thought as he approached the front entrance.

Lady luck wasn't on his side that day though.

"Hey Chris, I haven't seen you in a while," Jordan said casually, as if talking about the weather.

"Well, I've just been busy," Perry said with a shrug, trying to shift his way around her without it looking like he was trying to escape.

"Yeah, it has been pretty crazy around here," she said disinterestedly. "I just heard about DJ. That was pretty lucky that you just ran into him like that." Perry nodded. "So what are you doing here?"

"Oh, not much, I'm just-"

"Do you hear that?" she asked curiously, cutting him off.

Perry paused, trying to hear what she was listening to. It was a strange cracking noise that sounded a bit metallic. It was coming from above them and both Perry and Jordan looked up to try and find the source of the noise. Before they could even begin to process what the noise might be, suddenly there was a metallic _snap_ and the Sacred Heart Hospital sign above them fell.

Without even thinking, Perry immediately grabbed Jordan and pulled them both out of the way just as the sign came crashing down onto the ground where they once stood. Jumping up and down on the broken sign with a hissing cackle was Cade's graveling.

"Thanks for the save, Superman, but you can let go of me now," Jordan said.

"What?" Perry asked, his gaze snapping from the graveling to Jordan who he still had wrapped up in his arms. "Oh, right." he said, his arms dropping to his sides.

Looking back over at the sign, he saw that Cade was already gone; probably off causing more trouble somewhere else.

"Oh great, as if cleaning the floors wasn't enough," the Janitor griped as he walked over to the broken sign and prodded it with his foot. "I should get a raise for this."

Pulling his eyes away from the sign, Perry realized that Jordan had already left, most likely to go find Kelso and tell him just how much of a death trap she thought the hospital was. Sighing, Perry left for the third floor to take care of his first reap.

'_This is going to be one of those days, I can already feel it,_' He thought negatively.

And it was one of those days. He had no problems with his first reap, but with his second reap, Cade came into the room and pulled out the IVs and unhooked all of the equipment of the other patient in the room who _wasn't_ supposed to be dieing that day. Luckily, Perry managed to hook everything back up and put all the IVs back in before any damage had been done. Unluckily though...

"Chris, how did you know how to do all of that?" Elliot asked incredulously from her position in the doorway. She had raced in when she heard the monitors go off and had seen Perry putting the last few IVs back in.

"Um, I dabble in medicine," he supplied lamely, caught off-guard by Elliot's sudden appearance.

Looking down at his watch, he saw that he had only five minutes before the other man in the room flat-lined.

"I gotta go," he said, moving past Elliot who had come in to make sure all the IVs were placed correctly.

As he speed-walked out of the room, he could hear her call after him, "These are all placed right. Chris, wait!"

Whatever else she was going to say though was cut off by the long continuous beep of the other patient flat-lining. Whistling to the soul that appeared outside the door of the room, Perry led the stunned man away to find his light.

* * *

JD ended up taking a cab to Sacred Heart after finding out that wearing a helmet with two large bruises on his face wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. He only had one reap for the day and it was a good thing too because he was still tired when he finally got up that morning. His reap was a middle aged man by the name of James Brown.

"If you're Death, then why are you all beat up?"

James liked to ask a lot of questions.

"Youre okay with a Death who is just a skeleton, but a Death with a couple bruises is too hard for you to believe?" JD asked, feeling tired and grouchy and ready to be done with the reap so he could go back to the apartment. "Look, I got into a fight, okay? You should see the other guy."

"So what _did_ start that whole skeletal Death in a black cloak thing?" James asked as JD lead him into the stairwell to take him out of the hospital.

"I don't know," JD sighed. "That was way before my time."

"Before your time? You're Death!" James said, confused.

"It's complicated. Just.. just drop it," JD said.

"There's no scythe either?" James asked, sounding a little disappointed.

"No, that would be a little inconvenient, don't you think?" JD said.

"I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for God to make an extendable scythe for you so that you could fit it in your pocket when you're not using it," James pointed out.

"What would I even do with a scythe?" JD wondered before an infomercial played out in his head of all the convenient uses a scythe had.

_You can prepare a meal with it! You can landscape with it! You can even open a portal to the afterlife whenever you need to and herd all those annoying souls in that otherwise want to stick around and bother you! You can-_

Before his daydream could continue any further, his right leg gave out on him mid-step and he found himself falling the rest of the way down the stairs. Laying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, JD sighed and mentally cursed the world in general, making no attempt to get back up.

"Whoa, buddy, are you okay?" James asked jumping down the last few steps before coming to kneel next to JD.

"I'm fine," JD grumbled as his hands curiously prodded at his right leg. "My leg just... stopped working or something."

'_What the hell is going on with me lately?_' he wondered, dragging himself into a sitting position.

"It stopped working? Is that something that usually happens, kind of like a skeletal Death loosing his leg bone?" James asked.

JD thanked the higher-powers that he was saved from answering anymore of James' questions when a glowing elevator appeared in the stairwell just a few feet from them.

"There's your light, now go to it before it leaves," JD said, watching as the elevator doors slid open.

"I don't know, an elevator? Couldn't that go either way for me?" James asked.

"Trust me, you'll be fine," JD said. "Now go."

James stood up and walked over to the elevator. Pausing in front of the open doors, he looked over his shoulder at JD and asked, "Are you going to be okay?"

"I'm Death, remember? I'll be fine," JD said, waving the man away.

Shrugging, James stepped inside elevator before he and the lights disappeared. Turning his attention back to his leg, JD cautiously stretched it out and moved it around a bit. It seemed to be working fine now, and aside from the few bruises, it didn't hurt at all.

'_Strange,_' he thought as he tentatively got to his feet and tested how much weight he could put on his leg. He frowned as he stood up straight without any problems, and tapped his foot a few times. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, he shrugged before heading out of the hospital to catch a cab home.

* * *

_That's the end of chapter five, and good news everyone! I found a library near me with internet access and reasonable hours. I'm super pumped._

_Review please!_


	6. Chapter 6

Shadows of the Grave

Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

When JD woke up that morning to the ringing of his phone, it took him a moment before he realized that the side of his face was wet, and it wasn't just his face, a good portion of his pillow was wet too. With a grimace, he wiped the drool off his face with the bed sheet and ignored the ringing phone in favor of focusing his sleepy mind on his newest dilemma. It wasn't so much the drooling that concerned him as it was the reason _why_ he had been drooling in his sleep in the first place.

He couldn't breath through his nose. It was the sort of annoyance he never really had to concern himself with after his death. Throughout his afterlife, there had only been a few times where he had such a problem and in each situation it had always been because of a broken nose and dried blood clogging up his nasal passage. He could tell right away though that this wasn't the case and had he not been a doctor, he might not recognize the additional symptoms of fatigue, a headache and a sore throat for what they were.

He had a cold.

The feeling was completely _alien_ to him and a dramatic part of his mind felt like he was dieing all over again. He supposed that over a century of complete immunity to all germs and viruses spoiled him, but considering his line of work as both a reaper and a doctor, he felt he deserved such an immunity. It was a job benefit, like health insurance.

So then why did he feel sick?

'_I don't get sick!_' he thought in a tone that closely resembled Elliot's high-pitched hysterical squeak. '_My reaper metabolism and immune system are supposed to take care of everything. What the hell is going on?_'

Was this some sort of punishment for breaking the rules? After all, he _did_ tear the souls out of _two_ people and that was a big no-no. Was he just going to get sicker and sicker until he shriveled away into nothing? He felt like he was shriveling away. Well, maybe not literally, but still, he felt _horrible._

The phone started ringing again. Without sitting up, he grabbed the shrilly ringing device that did nothing to help his headache and rolled over to the dry side of the pillow before answering it.

"What do you want?" he growled and mentally yelped at how scratchy his voice sounded.

"Joseph?" Barbara asked, sounding a little confused.

"Yeah, it's me Mom," he sighed.

"What's wrong with your voice?" she asked.

"I have a cold," he said.

She paused for a moment, as if trying to comprehend what he was saying, before she said suspiciously, "I don't get your angle."

"No, really, I have a cold. I'm sick," JD insisted.

"You're not getting out of your reaps," she said and JD could practically visualize her stance; arms folded across her chest, a frown on her face, clearly not impressed with his excuse.

"I'm not trying to," he said, frustrated. "I'll take care of my reaps like I always do, but that still doesn't change the fact that I'm sick. I'm a doctor, I _know_ the symptoms."

"No joke, you're really sick?" she asked.

"Yes, I swear to you I am," JD said. "Is there some sort of reaper cold? I'm pretty stumped as to the reason _why_ I'm sick."

"No, there's nothing like that," Barbara said, sounding stumped herself. "I'll ask around, see if anyone knows anything, but in the meantime my advice to you is to treat it the way a living person would treat it. You still have to do your reaps though."

"Yeah, okay," JD said, grabbing a stack of post-its and a pen off his nightstand. "So what do we have today?"

After writing down all the information, Barbara told him, "Get some rest afterwards and make sure you take care of yourself. I'll call you later, Joey."

"Bye, Mom," he said tiredly.

After hanging up the phone, he decided to get his other scheduled morning task out of the way and dialed up Perry's cell phone number to tell him his reaps. The conversation was almost exactly like his conversation with Barbara. Perry didn't believe he was sick and when JD finally convinced him that he was in fact sick, the older doctor thought he was over-exaggerating about the whole thing.

"Okay, so maybe I'm being a little over-dramatic about it all," he muttered to himself as he snuggled in deeper to the blankets after getting off the phone with Perry and flipping his pillow over to the dry side. "But it's not my fault that I'm so unused to the feeling of being sick. Let's see him go a hundred years without even the slightest sniffle and then give _him_ the flu."

Closing his eyes, he tried to get a few more hours of sleep in before he had to get up for the day. It was around eight in the morning when he finally dragged himself out of bed and to the hospital. He hoped to make it a quick trip. He only had two reaps and he planned to be done with the second one by around ten-thirty. He would get in, take care of the souls, and then be out without anyone knowing he was there.

Or at least that was his plan.

Apparently he was so sick that he couldn't concentrate on remaining inconspicuous, for just as he was leaving the last soul to its light, Elliot came walking up to him. The light hadn't even disappeared yet and she could see him clear as day. His eyes darted from her to the light and he wondered if she could see the large, glowing flower blossom closing up in the hallway before it twisted in on itself and imploded.

"JD, what are you doing back so soon?" she asked, completely oblivious because _of course_ she couldn't see the light. He felt ridiculous for even worrying.

"Just visiting," he said with a shrug, trying to keep his answer short, but although the face mask hid his red nose and his dry lips, it couldn't conceal his scratchy voice.

"You sound horrible, are you feeling alright?" she asked with a look of concern.

"I'm fine," he insisted. "I just have a cold, I was actually going to head home now."

"Hold on a minute," she said. "Have you been coughing at all?"

Knowing right where this was heading, JD said, "I don't have the plague, it's just a cold.

"Humor me, alright? I'm pretty swamped right now, but let one of my interns check you out," she said, and JD was sure she had a pleading pout on under her face mask.

"Elliot, I just have the flu," he whined. "So let me go home and get some sleep."

"I'm not taking 'no' for an answer," she said, set in her decision and already fiddling with her pager. The next thing he knew, an intern was behind him, herding him down the hall while Elliot called after them, "It'll be quick, I promise!"

For a moment, JD actually considered attacking the intern and making an escape because being poked at and tested was the last thing he wanted to be dealing with when he was feeling so crappy. That would cause even more problems though and make what should be a short test last even longer, so with a defeated sigh, he let himself be led into an examination room.

* * *

That damn graveling was still haunting Perry. He had tried threatening it, bargaining with it, even pleading for it to leave him alone, but Cade's graveling was apparently beyond being reasoned with. In the time between now and when Cade pulled all the IVs out of a patient, it had tried to crush Perry four times with various objects both in the hospital and outside around town. He also had to fix two flat tires courtesy of Cade, he had to save more people than he could count who had been caught in the crossfire, and he even have to help one soul to the afterlife who had died prematurely. Thankfully, a graveling couldn't directly make another graveling by killing someone before it was their time.

He only had one more reap to go and it wasn't for a couple of hours. Usually he wouldn't waste his time hanging around the hospital and would go out and do something to kill time before his next reap, but with a graveling that could pop up at any given moment and cause trouble, he really didn't want to risk going anywhere.

'_That's another thing,_' he thought to himself. '_Where does that little bastard keep disappearing to?_'

"Oh my God! I know who Steve Harris is!" Elliot said, her eyes alight with a new piece of gossip as she raced over to the nurse's station. "I don't know if that's his real name, but I know what his role is in the government. I overheard his guards talking."

Resisting the urge to tell her just how much he didn't care, Perry quirked an eyebrow in her direction and asked, "Are you even allowed to tell us?"

"Well, no," she said, wilting a little bit. "But when he wakes up from his coma, there will be no need for secrecy."

"_If_ he wakes up," Perry muttered with a roll of his eyes as he walked away, leaving Elliot and Lavern to chat about the whole thing and Lavern trying to get clues out of Elliot. Turning the corner of the hallway, he was suddenly pulled to the side by a desperate-looking JD. Ignoring the younger (and yet older) doctor's hand bunched up in his shirt, Perry commented, "You look like hell."

Staring up at him with wild eyes, JD said, "You have to sneak me out of here before they realize I'm gone and word gets back to Elliot."

Prying JD's hands off his shirt, Perry asked, "Excuse me, I _have to?_"

"Please, please, _please,_ Perry," JD begged, clearly not thinking straight if he was using Perry's real name inside the hospital so close to people they knew. "They wanted to test me for the plague. One simple test, right? She said it'd be quick, but she _lied._ They heard a weird noise in my chest and then my stomach, so they scanned me, but nothing came up. Nothing came up on _any_ of the scans, and nothing's going to come up on the blood work or the sputum sample or _any_ of the tests because I have a cold. It's just a cold!"

Placing both hands on JD's shoulders, Perry said slowly, "Calm down, Johnny. I'll take you home, alright."

From around the corner, they could hear a pager go off followed by Elliot's patented, "Frick!"

JD's breath hitched in his throat and he tore down the hall in the opposite direction of Elliot, dragging Perry by the sleeve behind him. Only when they were safely in Perry's car did JD start to calm down.

"That was a little over-dramatic, even for you, Ginger," Perry said with his eyes on the road.

"Don't judge me. You don't know what they did," JD hissed, his head leaned back against the seat with his eyes closed. "All I want to do right now is go to bed and sleep this cold away."

"Do you have any cold medicine?"

"I've never needed it," JD whined, then said, "The previous owner of my apartment has some left over in the medicine cabinet." Perry pulled up in front of JD's apartment a little while later and JD threw him a grateful smile. "Thanks Perry."

Perry grunted and shrugged, mentioning something about JD having his cell number before driving away. Sighing, JD headed into the apartment complex and trudged up the stairs to his apartment. He couldn't wait until his house was finished being built.

* * *

It was well past midnight when he next woke up and this time it wasn't a ringing phone that tore him from the depths of sleep. Shivering underneath the covers despite the layer of sweat coating his skin, JD curled up into a ball on his side with his arms wrapped firmly around his middle. He felt like he was being torn up inside and he knew that if he didn't get to the bathroom or at least to a trash bin, he'd have a pretty big mess to clean up in the morning. His body didn't want to cooperate though, didn't want to uncurl itself or leave the warmth of the blankets.

Attempting to drag himself into a sitting position without uncurling too much, he ended up falling over the side of the bed, dragging half the blankets down with him. He lay on the floor shivering and panting, thinking that if he dragged enough air into his lungs, his stomach might just feel better.

With a heavy arm, he reached up and grabbed his cell phone off of the nightstand. He stared at the small phone for a moment, scrolling through the different numbers he had programmed in, and wondered if perhaps he was so unused to the feeling of being sick that he was making this out to be a lot worse than it actually was. His stomach flipped around inside of him, as if begging for some sort of outside help, and he had to swallow back the bile rising up in his throat.

He pressed the 'call' button and waited.

"Do you realize what time it is, Newbie?" Perry growled irritably over the phone.

"Can you come over?" JD asked with heavy breaths. "I've gotten worse... Can barely move."

Perry grumbled and swore, as if he wanted to refuse, but he must have heard some sort of truth of JD's misery in his voice because he said he'd be over in a little while before hanging up. Leaving the phone on the floor, JD wrapped one of the blankets around himself before attempting to crawl out of the room on his knees with one hand holding the blanket and the other still wrapped around his stomach. Vaguely he wondered where Danny was since he wasn't in his usual spot on the bed.

He must have blacked out because the next thing he was aware of was the front door closing as Perry entered his dark apartment. Because it wasn't actually his apartment, he didn't have a key for the front door and didn't bother locking it.

"Newbie?" Perry called out before turning on some lights.

JD shut his eyes tight against the light that momentarily blinded him and agitated his pounding headache. Groaning, he sat up, still hunched over with his arms wrapped around his stomach.

"Shit, kid, are you okay?" Perry asked, still unable to break the habit of calling JD 'kid.' Quickly walking over to him, Perry kneeled down to get a better look at JD.

"Where's Danny?" JD asked.

Glancing over his shoulder, Perry said, "He's hiding in a corner. Forget the mutt and tell me what's wrong."

"Feels like... my insides are in a blender," JD ground out with a groan as his stomach did another uncomfortable twist. "Gonna be sick."

"Alright, come on," Perry said as he dragged JD up to unsteady feet and led his once-protege into the bathroom where he fell to his knees in front of the toilet. Hunching over the toilet with his arms hugging the porcelain seat rather than his stomach, JD finally stopped holding back the bile and whatever else had been threatening to come up and wretched into the toilet.

Perry turned his back to the sick reaper to give him a little privacy and waited until the sick noises had stopped. He was about to go get a glass of water for JD when he heard him say in a frightened voice, "Oh, shit."

Turning around curiously, he froze at the sight of blood staining the toilet water red. It coated the inside of the toilet bowl and dribbled down JD's mouth, painting his lips red. Looking close to hyperventilating, JD stared up at him with wide eyes and said, "Call mom."

While Perry raced off to dial up Barbara, JD tried to gain control of his breathing. It was difficult. Along with the pain, his chest felt tight and heavy. He took a shuddering breath and then involuntarily coughed. A light spray of blood dotted the tiled floor and he cupped his hands over his mouth as more coughs came relentlessly, never pausing long enough to let him get his breath back. As blood pooled into his hand and dripped out between his fingers, he began to feel light-headed.

'_I can't breath!_' he thought desperately as his thoughts grew hazy. '_Can't breath..._'

As he slumped to the ground, still coughing and partly wondering where Perry was, another part of him wondered that if he could bruise and could get sick, could he die too? For a second time?

The coughing finally ceased, for a moment at least, and he lay there on the ground, the tiles before him spattered with crimson droplets. He panted, gaining his breath back, and fuzzily thought of how funny it was that he even _needed_ to breath in the first place.

With his cell phone to his ear, Perry explained the situation to Barbara as he made his way back to the bathroom. At the sound of a hiss, he paused on his way there to glare at the sooty form of Cade's graveling sitting on the kitchen counter. Frowning, he ignored the graveling and walked the rest of the way back to the bathroom. He had bigger problems to deal with at the moment.

"He's bleeding all over the place," he explained. "Clearly this isn't just a regular cold."

"This has never happened before," Barbara said. "I've contacted everyone I know and Joey's the first reaper to ever get sick."

"Should I bring him to the hospital?" Perry asked, stressfully running a hand through his hair.

"A hospital won't help," Barbara said. "Our systems are different than the living. Look, the only explanation I can think of to offer you is that a graveling is somehow behind this. When things go screwy for reapers, gravelings are somehow involved. Has Joey interfered in one of his reaps lately? Prevented a death from happening?"

"Not that I know of," Perry said.

'_Wait.._'

"Gotta go," he said quickly, snapping the phone shut before Barbara could get out a word of protest.

JD had told him that he accidentally killed Edward Hall. He said that Ed's graveling went away on its own, but somehow Perry didn't think that was the case. Cade had been haunting him and causing him trouble for the past few days, so maybe Edward was doing the same thing, but trying a different approach.

Kneeling down next to JD, he said, "Barbara thinks it's a graveling. Newbie, are you with me?"

JD responded with a groan.

"JD," Perry said, trying to get his full attention. "Could Edward's graveling somehow be doing this to you the same way Cade has been haunting me?"

"I... I don't know," JD said, trying to focus his eyes on the other doctor.

In a way, it sort of made sense. Only a graveling could find a way to do this to him, but that still didn't answer the question as to _how._ It wasn't like the graveling could slip him some poisoned food. Sure, he might get a little stomach ache, but his metabolism would take care of the rest.

Before he could think more on it though, another surge of pain tore through him. A whimpering moan escaped him and he pressed his back against the cool bathtub in an attempt to soothe the burning, stabbing feeling inside, as if he was going through a shredder. Blood bubbled up in his throat and poured out of his mouth onto the floor. He could faintly feel hands touching him, trying to help, and he could feel his own hands pressing against his chest and stomach where the pain resided.

The stabbing feeling intensified and blinded him to all other senses. It was worse than when he was mauled by lions and yet strangely similar. The feeling of sharp claws tearing in was almost exactly like the tearing feeling shredding him up from the inside-out. Claws... Claws inside of him tearing out... And what better way for a graveling to control him, his metabolism, his ability to heal, than to take over his body from the inside?

"Pe-Perry," he choked through the blood, trying to focus as much as he possibly could, needing to make the other man understand. "In me..." grabbing one of other doctor's hands, he pressed it against his chest while faintly wishing he had actually _told_ Perry the trick of grabbing an unwilling soul from the body. "Get... it _out_."

Perry, of course, had no idea what JD was trying to tell him. He watched the younger doctor writhing on the ground with blood leaking out of his mouth and nose, and he hated how helpless he felt in the situation. He didn't know what to do, didn't know how to save JD from the unbearable amount of pain he was undoubtedly feeling.

JD's grip tightened around his wrist and he choked out scattered words as he pressed Perry's hand harder against his chest. Oddly enough, as his hand was pressed even harder against the kid's chest, Perry's fingers began to tingle in a way they only did when he was releasing a soul from its body. He almost pulled his hand back at the feeling, fearing for a moment that reapers were in fact a body with a soul and he was at risk of releasing JD's soul.

JD kept his hand from pulling away though, and despite Perry's concern, he knew that this was exactly what JD wanted him to do. Needing no more encouragement, Perry pushed his hand against JD's chest and watched with a sort of morbid fascination as his hand phased completely into the kid's chest.

It was strange, to say the least. His hand didn't feel wet, as if it were plunged into blood and gore. It just felt a little cold, but warm at the same time, as if the two temperatures swirled together around his hand. He wondered what he was supposed to do at this point when the cold feeling suddenly bit him, as if it had teeth. He flinched, not expecting to be bitten, before instinctually grabbing the cold feeling that somehow didn't feel like it belonged and pulling his hand out.

The cold feeling wrapped around his hand and began to take form as his hand exited JD's chest which looked as if it had never even been punctured. With the cold feeling out of him, JD went limp on the floor, exhaling deeply. Turning his attention from JD back to his hand, Perry saw what looked like soot and ash floating in the air around his hand. The gray particles quickly solidified into the form of a graveling which he held by the neck.

The graveling hissed and snarled at him and twisted around in the air, trying to free itself. The scaly skin around its neck began to glow and burn away at Perry's touch. It shrieked and struggled harder as the glow spread throughout its body like wildfire. Finally, it burned away into nothing, just a few scattered embers fell to the ground before shriveling away into tiny wisps of smoke.

Hearing a hiss from behind him, Perry looked over his shoulder to see Cade's graveling latched onto the doorframe, watching him with a cautious fury in its eyes. Apparently deciding that Perry wasn't a risk it wanted to take, Cade turned tail and disappeared through the apartment floor.

Sighing, Perry turned his attention back to JD who stared up at him with tired eyes, the bruises on his face quickly fading away.

"Hopefully that's the last we've seen of the both of them."

* * *

_End of chapter 6! There's just the epilogue after this for Shadows of the Grave. Man, it's gotten too complicating describing JD as 'younger' when he's actually older and Perry as 'older' when he's actually younger than JD. (u.u;)_

_Review please!_


	7. Chapter 7

Shadows of the Grave

Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.

* * *

**Chapter 7: Epilogue**

With the morning news playing faintly in the background, JD stood in the small bathroom of his temporary apartment with an assortment of makeup scattered about on the bathroom sink. Staring into the mirror, he carefully applied the makeup on his face where two bruises should have been. He was finally going back into work at Sacred Heart and he had to keep up appearances. After all, it would be suspicious if it looked like he healed overnight.

It had been almost a week since that night Perry pulled the graveling out of him. Neither of them were really sure just what it was that Perry did to Edward's graveling, but if JD had to guess, he'd say that Perry forcibly sent Edward into the afterlife the same way they were able to help unspoiled souls to their light. As for Cade's graveling, it hadn't bothered Perry again since that night.

"We come live to you with breaking news," a female voice spoke in a serious tone on the TV.

Finishing up his makeup, JD strode into the living room and came to stand behind the couch that Danny was currently stretched out on. Footage of a factory with police officers and poison control swarming around the building played on the television screen. The entire building had been blocked off and the news station could only get a shot of the scene from the distance.

Turning up the volume, JD leaned against the couch and curiously listened to what the reporter had to say.

"After a long investigation as to the source of the plague that has swept America, authorities have finally been successful. Recently it has been discovered that the origins of the outbreak began at several factories like this one scattered about the country. These factories have been used to produce several different brands of antibacterial spray. What both workers of the factory and consumers had been unaware of is that a few hundred of these bottles were contaminated with the pneumonic plague."

"At this point in time, it is doubtful that anymore contaminated bottles have been sent out as there is enough carriers of the virus to continue infecting people. Still, all brands of the antibacterial spray have been pulled off the shelves as a precautionary measure. If you have any of the following brands listed below, police advise you to bring it to your local police station so that it may be disposed of properly. "

"It is not yet known who is responsible for the contaminated bottles, but an investigation is currently underway. I'm Karen Ross, back to you, Tom."

As Tom strongly advised anyone who had come into contact with the spray to seek medical attention, JD looked down at Danny, who was more interested in cleaning his paws than listening to the news, and said, "Well, at least it's a step forward. Of course, finding the cure for this plague rather than finding out where it originally started would have been a lot more helpful."

Sighing and shaking his head, JD grabbed his helmet and the keys to his scooter. Leaving the TV on for Danny, he called over his shoulder as he left, "Be a good boy, Danny! After _that_ news report, I have a feeling it's going to be a long, busy day for me."

* * *

Elliot Reid stood before the hospital bed of her once-mysterious coma patient who, only a few days ago, had finally woken up.

Looking from the chart back up to Steve Harris who watched her with an easy-going smile, she blew a few stray bangs out of her face and said, "Mr. Harris, I must say I'm shocked and amazed. The injuries you've sustained from the car crash are healing up nicely and you seem to have completely recovered from your coma. Well.. aside from.."

"The accent," he supplied, finishing her sentence.

"Yes," she said, a bit sheepishly. "Foreign accent syndrome is a rare side effect of, in your case, a severe head injury. Now, I know this must be hard for you, but there are a few support groups online and-"

"Dr. Reid," he said, holding up a hand to stop her. "Don't worry about it. I'm just happy to be alive. Besides, having an Australian accent really isn't that bad. It's kind of growing on me."

"Sounds kind of British to me," she mused.

"No, it's Australian," he said, frowning.

Smiling at him, she said, "If you have any other questions for me, just have a nurse page me."

"Thank you, Dr. Reid," he said, nodding to her as she left

Dropping his chart into the slot, Elliot walked out into the hallway and headed to her next patient. Lavern sidled up next to her and as soon as they were out of sight of Steve Harris' room, she asked, "So what _is_ Mr. Harris' role in the government?"

"He's the new assistant to the President for Homeland Security," she whispered conspiratorially. Even though there was really no harm in telling now that the patient was awake, she didn't want to be obvious about being the one to leak the information. "The position had been vacant since Frances Townsend's resignation in 2007. I guess they just haven't gotten around to announcing it. You didn't hear it from me though."

"Got it," Lavern said with a nod, strolling away.

* * *

_Dun-dun DUN! There you have it, the end of Shadows of the Grave. I have a one-shot planned after this followed by one final multi-chapter fic, so keep an eye out!_

_I'm partially in mourning for Scrubs. Only partially because of all the talk of another season on a different network, but until it's officially announced, I'm not getting my hopes up. Hopefully the rumor's true because I got no closure from last night's episode and I also **really** want to know the Janitor's name._

_Review please._


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